Recently a friend of mine posted on her FB page about homeschooling her nine children. She said she'd learned that one of the key elements of homeschooling was to allow her kids to experience boredom.
It made me think of a chapter in Janet Luhrs' Simple Living Guide about simplifying family life. She quotes the author of Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, who recalled coming home from school as a teenager and experiencing boredom that was "exceedingly unpleasant, so unpleasant I would eventually decide to act--to do something. I'd call a friend, I'd go outdoors. I'd go play ball. I'd read. I would do something. Looking back, I view that time of boredom, of 'nothing to do,' as the pit out of which creative action springs."
Last week the girls were off school and I was working from home. Evelyn came upstairs, head back, mouth agape, and whined, "We are SOOOOOOOOOOO bored!!!" I said, "Good! It's good to be bored. It means you have to be creative."
So they were. With zero prompting, they spent a few hours making these beautiful paper chains. They had to find all the various papers, cut them into the appropriately-sized strips, and staple them together.
Oh, and Evelyn also folded all the laundry that day. Out of boredom. So apparently, boredom can be the pit out of which springs not only creativity, but utility.
(NOTE: I am fully aware that this could have ended VERY differently. They could have chosen to create a wall mural using sharpie markers. They could have experimented with metallic objects in the microwave. Or they could have done what just happened here two days ago, when the class hamster, staying with us for the weekend, was given a spontaneous and unsupervised bath "because she smelled so bad." So far the hamster has shown no ill effects, although she may not be happy to learn that she's going to get an extra day at our house thanks to the incoming snow.)
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